Casey: Chap 4 Undetermined

I barred my teeth at all of the doctors and nurses that stared at me with wide eyes. There were eight of them. I spurted and growled like a crazed animal, wishing the foam would come out of my mouth like it used to when I practiced doing it so long ago. They had me trapped in the corner, but I wasn’t going to give up without killing them all first. My escape plan hadn’t exactly gone the way I had wanted it to, but it was going to work.

                “Calm down, Aiden” one of the doctors said to me, but I balled up my fists. I could feel my body wanting to change, but the medication wouldn’t allow it. My brain lit up with small zaps that progressed down through my body as the medication zapped the nerves back into place. I groaned and held my head with my hands.

                I opened my eyes as hands grabbed my arms, knees, feet and hair, and torso, lifting me off of the floor swiftly. I yelled and squirmed against them.  They yanked my hair back until I could only see the floor and two shoes. My right arm came loose and I threw punches in every direction. My fist connected with a face, and whoever it was screamed out. My fist hit an arm as I reached across to my left side, but someone was quicker and grabbed my it before it connected.

                I yelled harder in frustration over their voices as the lead doctor tried to calm everyone. Someone must have accidently had their back against my foot, trying to walk forward instead of backward. I took in a breath and with all of my strength, I jerked my leg back, against the grips of the hands that held onto my knee, and kicked, using mostly my heel. My foot landed on their upper back and I felt a snap under my foot. I heard a thud as the person hit the ground.

                A woman screamed and let go of my kneecap.

                “Hold onto him!” A male voice yelled, but it was too late. People were loosening their grips. There wasn’t another doctor or nurse in the hall that could help them.

                I jerked my legs up one at a time and kicked in sequence. My feet connected with arms, shoulders, sides, legs and finally the floor. The grip on my hair had grown harder, but I jerked my head out of the man’s grip that held it, yelling out against the pain.

                “Run!” A woman screamed. Her voice carried down the empty hall. I pulled my arms out of their grips and fell to the floor. I quickly got back up and looked at them all.

                The nurse that had kissed my cheek only hours before, stared at me, horrified, as she sat on the floor with her back to the stained, white wall. A man’s body lied on the floor with his face pressed into the floor. He was completely limp, but was breathing and blinking. Two doctors and a nurse were running down the hall. A female doctor was frantically dialing numbers on the splotched, red alert system. I knew that security would be charging up the stairs soon. I looked at the two men, one of which was the doctor who had tested on me the entire time I was at Piston. The other was a male nurse that I had never seen before. They stared back at me with horrified expressions on their faces.

                I had no idea where Dumasani and the others were, but I wouldn’t let anyone catch me.

                I lunged forward and attacked the male doctor, who yelled out in pain. I pounded my fist on his Adam’s apple and looked up at the others. The male nurse stared at me in disbelief.

                “Aiden, please!” The female nurse pleaded, now crying with her back still against the wall. I looked at the nurse and woman doctor.

                The man underneath me spurted blood and his eyes began to glaze over. I stood up and glared at the woman doctor who was dialing numbers. She had stopped dialing, her finger just above the number one button, and was staring dumbfounded at the man I had killed. She slowly lifted her eyes to mine and I didn’t blink. She looked like she was going to faint. Her finger was slowly coming down on the button, but I shook my head, “no”. Her finger stopped again and she swallowed.

                “You knew it was wrong to do this,” I said to them. “Now it’s our turn.”

                The woman doctor swallowed, nervously.

                I backed down the hallway then turned and ran. I had to find Dumasani.

 

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                “Put your book bag by the door,” the man said. I did as he told me while looking around the house.

“You like coffee?” The man asked, turning around to look at me. The house was larger than it looked on the outside. The living room was decently sized with modern color schemes for the walls and furniture. An open kitchen was ahead, the granite bar being the divider between the kitchen and living room. The television was to the left of the door as well as a wooden staircase leading up. Circular lights dotted the ceiling, giving a luminescent glow to the inside of the house. 

                The girl plopped herself back onto the puffy, black leather couch, sitting on the cushion closest to the door. She looked up at me and then at the television.

                “No, thank you,” I answered. I liked coffee, but the entire situation seemed strange. I stood with my back to the door, only leaving a few feet in case I needed to run.

“Then sit down. You’re making me uncomfortable,” the man said. I swallowed nervously and moved toward a black leather recliner.

“You can’t sit there,” the girl said, grabbing a bag of chips that were resting against the couch.

“Why not?” I asked, moving back from the chair. It looked like a perfectly normal chair.

“That’s Sam’s chair,” she answered, throwing her thumb over toward the man in the kitchen. I looked back at the chair. I had never heard of such a thing. I moved to the couch and sat down at the opposite end from the girl.

“Why am I here?” I asked, looking from the girl to Sam.

“Don’t you know it’s rude to talk to me until I’m aware of my surroundings?” Sam asked, joking, pouring coffee grounds into a strainer. I shut my mouth and looked at the television.

A woman was running away from serial killer. She ran through trees and into a house, closing the door behind her. It had been so long since I had seen hostile television shows. Disgusted, I looked at everything else. I noticed that the dog was nowhere to be found.

“What happened to the-” I started, but was interrupted. A guy came trudging down the stairs. He looked no older than me, which was seventeen. He had choppy brown hair, brown eyes and suntanned skin that illuminated against his white wife-beater. He was wearing dark jeans and his feet were bare.

“What’s up,” he said to me, smiling a crooked smile. He looked absolutely exhausted, but relaxed. He marched into the kitchen next to Sam, who was pouring coffee into a mug. Sam walked into the living room and gingerly sat down into the black recliner. He took a sip while watching the television and then turned his attention to me.

“My name is Sam, as you heard,” Sam said, looking over at the girl. When only stared at the television, not saying anything, he continued. “That-” Sam pointed into the kitchen. “is Caleb and if you didn’t know who she is, this is my little sister, Amie.”

“Word,” Caleb said, just above a whisper, from the kitchen. Amie cut her eyes at the kitchen and then turned her focus to the television again.

“Hi,” I said nervously. “I don’t really know why I’m here.” It was the truth. I really had no idea why I was here.

“If you stopped taking pills every time you have a problem, you’d be able to figure it out,” Amie said. I didn’t know what to say.

“What do you mean?” I asked. Sam cleared his throat, looking at Amie.

“How many pills do you take a day?” Sam asked. I looked at him and frowned. How many did I take?

                “Um,” I stammered. I started biting my lip. Had I really already had two pills today? How many had I taken the day before? Three? Four? “Three?”

                “Are you asking or telling?” Caleb asked, coming from the kitchen to sit on the couch, holding a bowl of cereal. I pushed myself into the arm rest to avoid touching him. The look of him gave me shivers and I didn’t know why. The entire household gave me shivers, but Caleb was worse.

Caleb plopped onto the middle cushion and put his feet up on the coffee table in front of the couch. He snatched the remote from Amie, who yelled in protest, and turned the channel to the news.

I looked back over to Sam and noticed he was staring at me. He raised an eyebrow and I sighed.

“Maybe three if not four,” I muttered. He was like my father, irritatingly like a dad. Amie whistled and looked past Caleb at me. I looked away and stared at the staircase.

I had never realized that I was taking so many. It almost seemed like a natural thing to do. Aiden had warned me of the pills when they came out, but that didn’t mean anything, did it? He was the one who betrayed me, so why would I trust him now?

“Then stop,” Sam said. He got up from the recliner, snatched the remote from Caleb and sat back down. He turned the television off and it was suddenly too quiet. I fidgeted with the hem of my jacket.

“Why should I stop?” I asked, looking over at the door.

“Because you look like a cocaine addict,” Amie stated. Caleb smiled at her comment while he stared down at the bowl of cereal. My head began to numb with the fact that Caleb was laughing at me and Amie was making fun of me. I put my hand to my head and groaned.

“Casey, look at me,” Sam said.  I looked over at him and couldn’t help but notice that Caleb and Amie were both staring at me.

“If you keep taking those pills, you will forget who you really are,” Sam said. “You’ll forget how to live your life and be normal. Do you really want that?” Was he serious?

“So I can continuously be mad, upset, drowsy, and get bad grades? So I can struggle in life and never be happy?” I challenged. I was about ready to get up and head for the door.

“Are you happy now?” Sam asked. I didn’t say anything for a while. “How do you feel right now?”

I thought about it for a minute. I was going to lie and say I felt sick and needed to leave, but I thought better of it.

“Anxious,” I answered. “Uncomfortable and on edge.”

“Do you know why?” Sam asked. Amie and Caleb quickly looked over at him, but he didn’t return the look. I frowned in confusion.

“Sort of,” I replied. I wanted to tell them it was because I was in some house with a bunch of strangers that made me nervous, but I figured it would be rude to say it out loud.  

“Hm,” Sam grunted and looked over at Amie and Caleb. They both turned away at the same time and continued to eat. “Have you ever been to Piston before, Casey?” I shook my head and by the look on his face, he had already known the answer.

“Have you heard from Aiden?” I asked. Caleb looked over at me from the corner of his eyes, but he didn’t say anything. My heart fluttered a little and I blushed. What was wrong with me?

“Yes, actually,” Sam said. My head snapped up and I looked over at Sam. My nerves tried to go crazy, but I felt the numbing sensation wash over me.

“What has he said?” I asked. Sam took in a deep breath.

“A lot,” Amie muttered under her breath.

“Why did you turn him in?” Caleb asked. He turned his head to look at me. The look on his face made me shrink back, my hip connecting with the harsh metal that was inside of the couch.

“I-I didn’t-” I stammered. Caleb looked over at Sam with a blank expression.

“Do you know what goes on over at Piston?” Sam asked and I nodded my head.

“What happens?” Sam challenged.

“They help…people become normal,” I answered. Aiden was definitely not normal. He needed to be helped.

Sam put his elbows on his knees and looked me in the eye. “What kind of people?” Sam asked. I swallowed hard. How much was I supposed to tell them? Was it a secret about what Aiden was? My head started to hurt again.

“Um,” I started. “Special people.” Amie giggled and looked over at Caleb, who smiled the same crooked smile.

“How do they get these ‘special people’ to be normal?” Sam asked, not amused by my statement. Why had I never wanted to know that?

“I don’t know,” I answered in a whisper and shaking my head.

“So you haven’t thought about it at all?” Sam asked. Amie and Caleb turned back to face me.

“Well, I-” I stammered. Sam got up from the recliner, taking a sip of his coffee and came to sit on the coffee table. He gingerly placed the cup on the table and looked at me. I scooted back from him, still staying away from Caleb.

“Think really hard about what they might do to these special people,” Sam said. I tried to think, but it only made my headache worse.

“I don’t know,” I answered, putting my hand up to my head.

“How much does the world hate people that are like these special people?” Sam asked. He was treating me like a child, which aggravated me, but at the same time I didn’t know the answers to these questions.

“A little bit, I guess,” I answered. I hated being interrogation he was giving me.

“And what happens when someone hates someone that isn’t taking the pills?” My mind raced. What could be happening to Aiden right now?

“They get in fights,” I answered. “What’s happening at Piston?” I asked. Sam looked out of the window that was next to the door. The sun was beginning to dim, but something moved outside. Sam jumped up as did Amie and Caleb. I moved to see what was happening.

“Bad things,” Sam answered. Sam ran to the door and opened it. A black man who looked about in his twenties was hanging on the doorframe. The light hit him just perfectly to make me noticed his grey eyes looking frantically around the room. His tee-shirt was bloody along with his hands and jeans. His right eye was beginning to swell.

“I...was…sent here…” The man said, puffs of white smoke evaporating into the house as he gasped. Sam gripped him before he fell on the ground. Amie ran past me and up the stairs while Caleb went to help Sam. Caleb slammed the door shut and it shook the house.

“Oh my God,” I whispered. I stood back as the two men placed him on the couch. Sam looked up at me and glared.

“Go get him some water!” Sam shouted. I ran into the kitchen without a second thought and opened wooden cabinet doors to find glasses. Finally after the sixth try, there were glasses. I grabbed a purple glass cup and ran to the refrigerator. I filled up the glass with water and ran back to the men. I offered it to Sam, who was kneeling by the man, and he took the cup from me.

Lifting up the man’s head, he placed the cup on the man’s lips and tilted the cup slightly. Sam said something in a hushed tone that I didn’t catch. The man gurgled and coughed. Sam drew the cup back and placed it on the table.

“Piston,” the man said.

                “Are there others with you?” Caleb asked. The man shook his head and closed his eyes.

“I…don’t know where they…are,” the man said. Caleb looked up at me for a split second and then at Sam. Sam looked like he was thinking.

                Amie ran back down the stairs with blankets and a pillow in her hands and under her arms. She came to a stop and stared at the man. Then she looked at me.

                “Maybe you need to go back home, Casey,” Amie said. Caleb looked up at Amie and then outside. Snowflakes had begun to fall again and it was starting to really get dark.

                “Do you have a ride?” Caleb asked. I looked over at him and saw he was looking at me. At that moment he looked familiar, but I couldn’t think of where I would have seen him. My skin crawled by the way he was looking at me.

                “No, but I’ll be fine,” I answered. I looked back at Sam, who continued to look at nothing in particular.

                “He’s taking you home, Casey. And we’ll pick you up tomorrow from school with Amie,” Sam said, but before I could protest, he continued. “So we can continue our talk.” Then he looked up at me. He looked as tired as Caleb had looked when I had first seen him. I decided not to argue.

                I took a breath and Caleb turned and grabbed a coat and keys from a hanger that was hanging next to the door then slipped on shoes.

                The man lying on the couch opened his eyes slowly and looked over at me. He blinked and I stared back at him. His eyes were so strange. I had never seen grey eyes like his before.

                “Come on, Casey,” Caleb called over to me. I walked over to the door and stood next to him. Grabbing my book bag, Caleb and I both looked over our shoulders as we went out the door. I followed Caleb around to the side of the house, noticing the bloody footprints that led to the house, and there I saw a red truck. It looked like it had been used…a lot.

                Caleb opened my door first. I crawled into the truck and unlocked his door. He fumbled with the keys until he reached the door and noticed it was unlocked. He looked in at me as I began to put on my seatbelt. Caleb opened the door and climbed in.

                “Thanks,” Caleb said. I nodded and he started the truck. It rumbled to life and he waited for a minute, turning up the heat.

                “Its better when you let it warm up,” Caleb said. He looked over at me and I tilted the corner of my mouth. “I’m sure it’s a shock to see an injured man come barreling into the house,” Caleb continued. I looked over at him. It was definitely a shock.

                “Yeah,” I answered, looking back out over the dashboard. Definitely. Everyone seemed to know what to do, too. “Does this happen a lot or something?” Caleb grunted a laugh.

                “Not as much as you think,” Caleb answered. I looked over at him.

                “Does that mean yes?” I asked. Caleb laughed.

                “No,” Caleb said, smiling. He pulled the truck into reverse and backed it out onto the road. Indianapolis looked beautiful with the blanket of snow on the ground. The snow fell elegantly from the sky.

                “Where is your house?” Caleb asked.

                “On Thanksgiving Drive,” I said. “It’s down this road and-”

                “I know where Thanksgiving is, just let me know which house is yours,” Caleb said, cutting me off. We didn’t say anything for a while until I couldn’t stand the silence anymore. All I could think about was the man on the couch and I didn’t want to think about what could have been the cause of his injuries.

                “Thanks for driving me home,” I said. I saw Caleb nod out of the corner of my eye. We didn’t say anything for another few minutes. The feeling of wanting to run away quickly elevated. When we turned and passed by my school, I decided to talk again to get it to go away.

“How are you related to Sam?”

                “I’m not,” Caleb said. He looked over at me and then back at the road. “I’m just living there for a little while until I can get a place of my own.”

                “Did you get kicked out or something?” I asked. When Caleb didn’t answer, I felt bad. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

                “No, no, no,” Caleb said. He shook his head. “It doesn’t bother me. No, I didn’t get kicked out…I….I went to Piston for a while.” I stared at him. Was he like Aiden? Should I be running away from him? I put my hand on the arm rest of the truck’s door.

                “Don’t feel nervous, Casey,” Caleb said. “I’m not going to hurt you or anything.” I almost felt ashamed. I put my hand back in my lap and looked out of the window.

                “Sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I stated. I really didn’t know what was wrong with me.

                “I do,” Caleb said. “Quit taking those pills, Casey.” His voice sounded sincere, but firm, which took me off guard.  We passed by Piston and Caleb turned onto Thanksgiving Drive. I looked into the side view mirror at Piston Memorial. I thought I saw something move, but it was only a bird.

                “Which house is it?” Caleb asked and I turned my attention back to him.

                “It’s at the dead end,” I answered. We had a little while to go. I thought for a minute. “How do I quit taking the pills?” I wasn’t going to quit, but I might as well ask. Caleb looked at me for a second.

                “Act like the rest of the people around you who are taking the pills, but don’t take anymore from now on.”

                “That seems a little bit hard.” Thinking about not taking them seemed practically impossible. I took them for everything and had been doing so for a year and four months.

                “It’ll help you think better and it will make you feel better.”

                We came up to the dead end and I clutched my book bag. I directed Caleb to the house and when he stopped, I opened the truck door.

                “Casey,” Caleb said in a pleading voice. I turned to look at him as I climbed out of the truck. “Please stop taking the pills. You’ll see why it’s better when you do.”

                I tilted the corner of my mouth up and hauled my book bag around my shoulder. I held my hand up as a wave and slammed the door.

“We’ll see.”